What would you do.

[Mindset]

I'm debating on signing this agreement. The original email:

Hello,

Attached is a tentative track list and agreement for the track “You Shine On Me” by Luz

Thanks in advance for your time.

rod linnum
water music records

(with these documents that I attached, one is a track listing, and one is the contract agreement)

I'm not all that into business law (I dropped out of the class last semester )

 

[danny.guitar]

You probably know more about law than I do, but after skimming over the document it looks like he wants to add your song on a 'Compilation CD' of some sort...and he's offering you $400 in advance, plus royalties.

But maybe you already knew that.

 

[Mindset]

yeah that's the part I already knew, but I was thinking that there's got to be a reason why some people don't want their stuff on a compliation album. $400 in advance is kind of cheap too but in royalties, 12% is a nice figure. Saying if they sold 500,000 copies that's like $1.1 million. Though in this industry, 1.1 million isn't much?

 

[n8tron]

i could be totally wrong about this, but first it looks like your roalties are based on net sales, not strictly 12% of $18.98. Also, it looks like 12% will get divided up between the 24 tracks. So you may be getting .5% of net sales.

so if they make an average of $10 a cd and sell 100,000. thats what.. $5,000?

like i said, i could be totally wrong about that.

 

[DavidK]

Seems pretty simple, you are gonna get 400 bucks.

As for royalties, keep in mind that if they sell it at a "cutout" rate, you will get nothing. In other words, If its $6.99, that is considered a cutout for the purpose of getting rid of inventory.

If they sell it for 15 bucks, you get 1/24th of 12 percent of that.

Bottom line: you get about 6 cents a disc at the top price. IF they sell it at the top price. Quite often CDs like this are available for the cutout rate, in that case you get $0. My guess is you MAY get 3 cents a disc.

I am guessing there is a lot more to the contract than this, I am assuming this is the first page???? Normally they are pretty in depth, the one I just signed was 25 pages.

Good luck and congrats, you sold a tune!